Why Direct Custodian Data Feeds Matter

Guides
| By
Masttro Team

What does a family office team do when there’s a board meeting coming up and they get two different sets of results from their two investment dashboards. 

One says $2.08B in AUM. The other: $2.04B. Now what?

Not necessarily a crisis, but the inconsistency can spark concern and hours of reconciliation. Eventually, the root cause might be found, perhaps it’s a screen-scraping feed that broke when the custodian changed their website layout.

The takeaway? Wealth data truth isn’t incremental. It’s binary. It’s either right now or it’s wrong.

Key Takeaways

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Stop relying on screen-scraping – Switch to direct custodian data feeds for real-time accuracy and reduced reconciliation errors.
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Replace spreadsheets with unified dashboards – Gain full visibility across asset classes, legal entities, and global accounts.
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Automate reconciliation to free up ops – Masttro’s platform reduces daily feed breaks and shortens reporting timelines.
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Secure your data with client-controlled encryption – Meet modern privacy, audit, and compliance standards with zero tradeoffs in usability.
Why Direct Custodian Data Feeds Matter

In the world of modern family offices, there’s an expectation that wealth data should be instant, accurate, and auditable. But for many wealthy families, that’s far from the reality.

When dashboards disagree it can send teams into fire drills, derail board meetings, and erode confidence. And more often than not, the root cause is upstream: a broken screen-scraping feed that failed after a custodian changed its website layout.

For single family offices, multi-family offices, and advisory firms alike, relying on outdated technology platforms with fragile data connections has become unsustainable. This is especially true for family office clients managing complex investments, ranging from alternative investments and private equity to real estate, art collections, and family trusts.

Masttro is redefining the standard. 

Built by operators inside a multi-generational family office, the platform replaces third-party intermediaries with direct data pipes to over 600 global custodians – enabling the real-time reconciliation of financial assets, better visibility across asset classes, and the peace of mind that comes with data truth.




The Hidden Cost of Broken Feeds

It starts small. A reconciliation delay here, a missing transaction there. But when you aggregate wealth across multiple jurisdictions, legal entities, currencies, and investment strategies, those small cracks widen fast.

Family office staff often spend days hunting down discrepancies, toggling between spreadsheets, legacy portals, and static PDF statements from private banks. These inefficiencies are more than administrative annoyances – they jeopardize timely investment decisions, expose gaps in estate planning, and increase the risk of error in reporting to family office executives and external stakeholders.

This is particularly true in single family offices where the team structure is lean, but the operational burden is high. These firms may hold assets with many custodial institutions but lack a unified platform to monitor them.




How Data Gets Lost in Translation

Most wealth platforms rely on third-party aggregators or screen scraping to pull data. This might mean logging into custodial portals using shared credentials – practices that introduce real risk and violate terms of service. The result?

  • High failure rates when custodians change UIs
  • Lagging data (T+1 or T+3 latency)
  • Shared credentials that create security gaps
  • No audit trail – data can be overwritten
  • No visibility into corporate actions or complex ownership structures

And while some platforms may advertise broad coverage, they don’t control the data access. In one high-profile case, Plaid was ordered to pay $58 million after misusing consumer data collected through unauthorized access methods.

Masttro is built differently.

  • Direct custodian feeds – over 600 global institutions
  • Bank-adherent architecture – no scraping, no shared logins
  • Immutable audit trail – data integrity is preserved
  • Server-to-server connections – secure, encrypted, compliant
  • Live reconciliation dashboards – see data freshness in real time

For family offices, RIAs, and private banks, accuracy and trust aren’t optional. They’re the foundation. That’s why Masttro rejects scraping models entirely and replaces them with infrastructure designed for long-term wealth management – not brokerage shortcuts.




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Direct Feeds: The Foundation of Trustworthy Reporting

Masttro’s direct custodian pipes provide secure, contracted data delivery via APIs and SFTP connections. This is data signed by the source – banks, custodians, or trust companies – not parsed from PDFs or scraped from online portals.

Compared to traditional feeds:

Factor Screen Scraped Direct Custodian Feed
Source Unverified HTML/PDF Bank-signed API/SFTP
Error Rate ~5% <0.5%
Latency Hours or days Intraday/live
Resilience Breaks frequently Contracted uptime
Auditability Fragile, overwritable Immutable, hash-chained

This direct-feed architecture powers Masttro’s real-time dashboards, built for investment managers, accounting advisors, and wealth owners to track investments, reconcile transactions, and prepare reports instantly.




Unified Wealth Data Across Every Asset Class

Most legacy systems are optimized for public securities. But wealthy families now demand a total view of their balance sheet – including private equity, real estate, alternative investing vehicles, limited partnerships, bank-managed accounts, and even lifestyle assets like yachts or art.

Masttro’s Global Wealth Map is an interactive tool that visualizes every asset class and entity in context: who owns what, where it resides, how it performs, and what’s changing.

This consolidated reporting structure supports:

  • Financial transactions and capital calls

  • Custody model–specific reconciliations

  • Cash management services

  • Future event tracking and liquidity projections

  • Estate and succession planning

It empowers family office professionals to deliver timely investment advice, plan around major liquidity events, and support long-term success with accurate data always at hand.




Use Case: From Spreadsheet Fatigue to Scalable Control

Consider a single family office managing assets across New York, London, and Zurich, with accounts at JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, and a European private bank. Their portfolio includes both advisory relationships and discretionary mandates, plus a blend of alternative investment opportunities and real estate holdings.

Before Masttro:

  • Reconciliation across 40+ custodial accounts took 8 days
  • Private equity tracked in Excel, with limited regulation or review
  • Next-gen heirs had no access to live data – only static PDFs

After Masttro:

  • 97% of AUM connected via direct data pipes
  • Breaks dropped from 220/day to only a handful
  • Full estate planning visualization with live data
  • Interactive dashboards accessible via mobile and iPad

The result: better investment decisions, less back-office burden, and a platform that elevates the client experience and supports future generations.




A Culture Of Data Security

At Masttro, security isn’t a feature, it’s a foundation. Masttro’s data security model exceeds the standards of most global financial institutions – without compromising usability for the modern family office.

Key controls include:

  • Client-controlled encryption keys: Only the respective owners can decrypt their data.
  • No data stored on devices: Mobile apps stream pixels, not files.
  • Private cloud architecture on Swiss servers: Each client operates in a fully isolated environment.
  • SOC 2 Type 2 compliance: With real-time audit logs, access trails, and data lineage.

This ensures peace of mind for clients concerned with fiduciary services, data sovereignty, or sensitive custodial relationships – particularly amid tightening security policies and financial promotion regulations across jurisdictions.




Strategic Value for Everyone

  • CIOs gain a live, audit-ready view into complex portfolios – ensuring no blind spots in risk or exposure.
  • COOs streamline workflows and eliminate manual reconciliation. Client Advisors spend less time formatting spreadsheets and more time delivering insight.
  • Family office executives visualize holdings across generations and engage next-gen users. 

For ultra-wealthy families balancing family values, family constitution obligations, and long-term capital for generations, this isn’t just about software – it’s about continuity.




From Complexity to Clarity

Masttro doesn’t just provide data feeds. It offers a secure foundation for families to master their financial picture across all entities, investment products, asset classes, and generations.

In a world of challenging market conditions and increasing demand for transparency, only one platform is built for the family office business from the ground up.

Ready to replace broken feeds with clarity, confidence, and control?
Let’s begin your roadmap to truth.

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Javier C. Gutierrez
Kaelyn Embler
Evaristo Garcia

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